NSN News

++ Pro-faith school parents up to three times more likely to get their children into a good school ++++ More than 60 towns and cities where majority of ‘Good’ schools are faith schools ++++ Choice limited for parents who do not want to send their children to religious or independent schools ++

Responding to research highlighting a fall in the proportion of students from poor backgrounds going to some of the country’s leading universities, NSN calls for universities to set up their own free schools to prepare pupils from all backgrounds for the rigours of academic life.

Currently, when a faith-based free school is over-subscribed, they must limit the number of pupils they accept on the basis of faith at fifty per cent. The New Schools Network recommends abolishing this rule and replacing it with a more effective approach which will not deter potential high-quality groups from establishing new schools.

Following the publication of the Oldham Education and Skills Commission’s report this week, the New Schools Network – the charity that aims to improve the quality of education by increasing the number of free schools – has written to the best schools in Oldham, asking them to consider replicating their own success by founding their own free schools.

"The vested interests attacking free schools today are simply wrong. The problem is not new free schools but those who seek to block new free schools for political purposes. Anybody who cares about the future of education and the prospects of children up and down the country should come together and work to get new schools open. Free schools are the only way of meeting the need for rising demand for school places and improving standards where schools have been failing for too long."

Research by the New Schools Network has found that more than 100,000 school places have been created in schools that are already struggling. With the school age population forecast to rise by nearly 900,000 in the next ten years, local authorities are working to create new places. But 113,000 of these new places created in the last five years are in schools that are lagging behind.